CHAPTER XVII.
THE SUBMARINE THAT FAILED.
Meanwhile our Grand Fleet was watching and waiting for the German Navy to come out and fight. Our sailors seized many German merchant vessels on the seas, and those that were in our ports were captured; but the warships of the enemy were nowhere visible. We soon began to understand that the Germans did not propose to risk their ships in battle for some time to come. One of their military writers had recommended that they should try to reduce our Navy to the strength of their own by means of submarine[174] and destroyer[175] attacks before coming out to fight. On the second day after war was declared, we discovered that they had planned another method of sinking our ships without endangering their own.
Here is a little picture of what is known as a floating mine. It consists of a hollow, pear-shaped case, containing an electric battery and a large amount of gun-cotton, or some other high explosive. This mine is thrown into the sea, and by means of an iron weight is made to float three or four feet below the surface. If the mine is struck hard, it will cant over sixty-five or seventy degrees. Then the mercury in a little cup would overflow, and by so doing would complete an electric circuit and explode the gun-cotton. So terrible is the explosive force of gun-cotton, that it will tear asunder the biggest ship, and either cripple it or send it to the bottom. Never before has any nation strewn the open seas with such floating mines, and their use in this way is against all the laws of war which are observed by civilized nations.
The Germans soon discovered that large mine-layers ran a great risk of being sunk by the guns of our warships, so they employed fishing-boats and other small craft to lay these deadly engines in the sea. Many of these ships flew the flag of a neutral Power, and thus pretended that they were engaged on lawful and peaceful business. The North Sea became a death-trap, and our Admiralty had to meet the danger by employing a large number of trawlers to sweep up the mines.
The work is done in the following way. Two trawlers sailing parallel with each other drag through the sea a steel hawser which is attached to each of them. The hawser drags the mines along, and they are then picked up. You can readily understand how dangerous this work is. The trawlers themselves may strike a mine, and be blown up; or two mines drawn along by the hawser may collide when they are near to the trawlers, in which case the same result follows. Many gallant smacksmen have lost their lives in trying to free the sea from this terrible peril. We ought to think of them as heroes of the best and highest type. Always remember that it is more glorious to save life than to destroy it.
On the 6th of August a flotilla of British destroyers, accompanied by the light cruiser[176] _Amphion_,[177] sighted a German vessel off the Dutch coast engaged in throwing out floating mines. The _Lance_, a British destroyer, at once attacked this vessel, and in four shots destroyed her bridge, tore away her stern, and sank her--all within the space of six minutes. Some fifty members of the crew were saved by the British boats. Though the mine-layer was at the bottom of the sea, she had done her deadly work, and was soon to achieve a victory. As the _Amphion_ was steaming towards Harwich, and was about thirty miles off Aldeburgh, she struck one of the mines laid by the sunken ship, and was instantly blown up. The bow of the ship was shattered, and in less than twenty minutes she sank, with a loss of 131 lives. The captain, sixteen officers, and 135 men were saved; but twenty German prisoners confined in the bow were killed by the explosion of their own mine. Since the _Amphion_ went down, many peaceful merchant ships and trawlers, both British and neutral, have been sunk by these mines, as well as two other British warships.
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Here is a section of a submarine, a type of vessel which is now being used for the first time in warfare. You see that it is shaped like a rather fat cigar, tapering towards its after or tail end. In the centre of the top of the hull we see a small conning-tower. At the stern there is a propeller, and also a series of rudders which enables it to steer to and fro, or up and down. If you study the picture, you will see what the interior of a submarine is like. By means of tanks, which can be filled with water or emptied, the submarine can sink or rise at will. When she comes near an enemy, she sinks until only a short mast appears above the surface. This mast is a hollow tube fitted with a lens and mirrors, so arranged that images of objects outside the boat and above the surface are thrown on to another mirror, where they are examined by means of a magnifying glass. This "periscope," as the hollow mast is called, is the eye of the submarine. It enables her to see when her hull is beneath the waves. If she sinks altogether, or if the periscope should be carried away, she is blind and can see nothing.
Some submarines have a gun on deck, but their real weapon is the torpedo. There is a picture of one on page 183. It is really a little warship in itself, with its own hull, propeller, rudders, engines, and a mass of gun-cotton in the place of guns. This explosive is stored in the head of the torpedo, which is provided with a striker-rod of steel. When this rod hits the target it is forced back and explodes a little charge, which in its turn explodes the gun-cotton which lies behind it. A torpedo is fired from a tube, and immediately it strikes the water its engines begin to work. It then rushes towards its target at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour for a distance of three miles or more. By means of a very remarkable piece of apparatus, it is steered back to its line of fire if it should be turned out of its course. If the aim is sure, and the torpedo hits its mark, the gun-cotton explodes with such terrific force that it will sink or cripple the biggest ship afloat.
On ordinary warships a torpedo can be fired from a tube either above or below water. The tube can be moved just like a gun, and so a correct aim can be taken. The tubes of a submarine, however, are all below water, and they are fixed so that the submarine itself must be moved into the right position before it can discharge a torpedo with correct aim.
Submarines have been called, with good reason, "the deadliest things that keep the sea." With only the thin periscope showing above the waves, they can silently and secretly creep within range of a warship, and send off a torpedo on its deadly errand. To detect the thin periscope from the bridge of a warship is not easy, and during the present war several gallant ships have been taken unawares and sent to the bottom.
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Now let me tell you the story of a submarine that failed.
On the 9th of August a flotilla of German submarines was in the North Sea. Their narrow gray bodies were furrowing the waves at a speed of about fifteen knots an hour. On the little deck of each of them stood a commander, sweeping the horizon through powerful glasses for signs of the enemy. Down below men were standing by the motors, examining the gauges, filling the compressed air chambers, and making sure that the torpedoes were "ship-shape."
Yonder is Submarine U 9. Suddenly her commander closes his glasses with a snap. He has sighted the funnels of British cruisers, and the hour of action has arrived. The long-expected signal rings out below, and the commander leaves the tiny deck and withdraws into the interior through a hatch, which is carefully closed behind him. He takes his place in the conning-tower, where, under his hand and eye, is all the apparatus needed for steering and controlling the boat.
A valve is opened, and air is allowed to escape from the water-ballast tanks in the bottom of the vessel. Water flows in, and the submarine sinks until she is running "awash," with the base of the conning-tower only just clear of the waves. She is now ready to dive. This she must do before getting within range of the cruisers out yonder. There are hundreds of keen eyes on the British warships, and even the conning-tower of a submarine a mile away will be seen. A wheel is moved, the boat tilts downward slightly at the bows, and in a few moments the water is swirling round the windows of the conning-tower. Diving has begun. Down, down she goes. Presently the wheel is moved again, and the boat returns to an even keel. The only part of her that now shows above the water is the periscope.
The commander glues his eyes to the mirror which gives him a view of the sea around. The images of the cruisers grow larger and larger; one of them, H.M.S. _Birmingham_, is now within range. He moves his boat so that the torpedo tube at her bow points directly towards the _Birmingham_. His hand hovers over the switch which will launch a torpedo on its death-dealing errand. Why risk missing to avoid the slight danger of discovery? Another five hundred yards, and then----
The fateful moment has come. His hand slightly trembles with excitement as he prepares to make the trifling movement which may send some hundreds of men to a watery grave, and a gallant ship, worth more than a million of money, to the bottom.
He presses the button; a flap opens in the tube in the bows; a valve admits compressed air into the rear end of it, and a shining torpedo leaps forward towards the quarry.
_Crash!_ The image in the periscope has disappeared, and the submarine rocks slightly. The periscope has been sighted by a keen eye on the _Birmingham_, and a superb shot has carried it away. The submarine is now as blind as the giant after Ulysses had bored into his one eye. The biter has been bitten. It cannot remain under water, for a touch of the cruiser's steel bow will be the stroke of doom. If it comes up, a storm of shell will rage about it. The commander has a choice of perils. Desperately he decides to come up and endeavour to fire another torpedo.
The horizontal rudders are set in motion; compressed air is admitted to the ballast chambers, and some of the water is blown out. The conning-tower rises above the level of the water; but, before she can use her sting, all is over. The cruiser's quick-firing guns have been waiting, and the moment the deck appears a four-inch shell is discharged at it. The armour at the base of the conning-tower is cleft through as though it were a biscuit-box. Water rushes in, and a minute later the ill-fated craft, a marvel of ingenuity, lies on the bottom, twenty fathoms deep. There it will rust away long after the war in which it played such a brief part has passed into history.
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Such is the story of how H.M.S. _Birmingham_ sank the German submarine U 9. Some accounts tell us that the periscope was not shot away, but that when the torpedo from the submarine missed its mark, the cruiser made a rapid turn and drove straight at her, crumpling her to pieces by the terrible force of its weight and speed. This is the method which our cruisers usually adopt when attacked by submarines. They steam rapidly in a zigzag course, so as to disconcert those who are aiming the torpedo, and, at the first sign of the submarine's presence, charge down upon her and sink her.
[Footnote 174: See p. 181.]
[Footnote 175: Destroyers are fast warships, smaller than cruisers, and are meant to act against torpedo boats of the enemy. They also engage in scouting and patrol work. Some of them have a speed of more than 40 knots, and carry 105 men. All are armed with quick-firing guns and torpedoes.]
[Footnote 176: War vessels built mainly for speed. They were originally used for scouting, but nowadays they are little inferior in strength and gun power to battleships. A battle cruiser is really a battleship with high speed. The _Lion_, for example, has a tonnage of 26,350 tons, and steams over 30 miles an hour. She carries eight 13.5-inch guns, and sixteen 4-inch guns. The _Lion_, the _Tiger_, the _Queen Mary_, and the _Princess Royal_ are the most powerful battle cruisers in existence.]
[Footnote 177: _Am-fī´on._]